I first became aware of Pura Sombar early this year. The first music I heard of theirs was the wonderful, single-track, EP Tongues Falling from an Open Sky – a drift on fragile harmonies through a hovering twilight. Not long after, I was gifted with copies of two physical releases of theirs.

Chromatic Winds was released in 2011 on CommA – although the website hasn’t been updated since well before this CD was released. Odd? Wait. The album packaging is gorgeous: a folded, die-cut sleeve (heavy paper? light cardboard?) with beautiful artwork on each panel. Enclosed with the CD are two more panels with very nice artwork on each side. It comes with an obi and the whole thing is enclosed in a sealable plastic bag. The only printed information is the group name and the album name. Neither of the artists use their real name anyway, so that really doesn’t matter. See? They all love a bit of mystique. But what’s most important here is the music.

The first track is a delightfully eerie, ominous collection of drawn-out sounds...